Adam Lyal Fan Club - Lyal In The Press

Lyal in the Press

Beyond anecdotes! Sometimes, a story's so good (or a news day so slow) that our exploits make it into the local rag - or even a heavyweight national daily like the Currant Bun (Sun)! Scroll on down and find out why - all stories reproduced 'warts and all' complete with misspellings and glaring inaccuracies.

"£1,000 BID FOR BIT OF A BURKE - Robin's auction snatch"

A small piece of dried skin from infamous body-snatcher William Burke fetched more than £1000 yesterday. Burke, who terrorised Edinburgh last century by murdering people then selling the bodies, had his skin removed after he was hanged and dissected for his crimes.

Part of the skin was used to make a card case, and yesterday ghoulish tour operator Robin Mitchell bought it for £1050.

The spooky case will now go back to Edinburgh where Mr Mitchell is a partner a group called The Cadies, which gives guided tours on Burke and his partner William Hare.

Mr Mitchell, who bid by telephone to the auction on the Midlands, said: "We tell Burke and Hare stories every night, so this means a lot to us."

And he added: "Mr Burke is going to be very active - just like he was in the old days."

The Cadies' main rival for the case was legal clerk Tony Creed, 42, of Southend, Essex, who bid by telephone from his London office.

A disappointed Mr Creed said he was fascinated by the Burke and Hare story after watching a horror film about them when he was a child.

"DRACULA CAUSED MAYHEM IN THE ROYAL MILE LAST WEEK"

Tomas Macphail (23) works for The Caddys, a group of youngsters who organise murder and mystery tours of Edinburgh's old town.

A guide takes people along the alleyways of old Edinburgh, filling them in with the details of gory happenings in bygone days. To add to the atmosphere, someone dresses as a skeleton, ghost or other frightening figure and jumps out to terrify the people in the group.

The other night it was Tomas's turn to dress up as a Dracula-type figure in black cloak and whitened face, and spring out from a darkened wynd. Sure enough, when he leapt out he scared the living daylights out of everyone.

But not everything went according to plan - because a car suddenly drove down the street. The boisterous young occupants spotted Dracula, wound down the windows and began shouting and yelling.

Unfortunately the driver forgot to look where he was going. There was a sickening bang as the car ran into a bollard! Luckily, it wasn't going too fast and none of the passengers was injured.

Tomas was quite taken aback by the commotion. And he couldn't help having a quiet chuckle when he got a letter from an insurance company asking him to confirm that Dracula had caused the crash!

First Class Horror - Adams Stamp of Approval

Postman Fraser Hood got the fright of his life when he was delivering mail in Edinburgh - he caught sight of the Royal Mail's new postage stamps.

Fraser was on his rounds of the Capital's tenements on Tuesday morning (May 13) when he got the first glimpse of the scary new designs for stamps.

But he got a bigger fright when he stumbled across two local horror characters from Edinburgh's past - deceased highway robber Adam Lyal and the Mad Monk.

They were lurking in the Capital to mark the new set of Royal Mail stamps - the Tales of Terror stamps - to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

As well as Dracula and Frankenstein, the stamps also feature Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.

Lorna Unearths Yellow Pages Prize

Mary Queen of Scots has been named Scotland's top personal assistant. Or to be more precise, Kirkcaldy woman Lorna Baxter has, and this week she's in London competing for the title of Yellow Pages PA of the Year.

In between making sure the Witchery Tours office in Edinburgh runs like clockwork, 31-year-old Lorna fills in as Scotland's ill-fated monarch on the company's ghostly walks around the capital. And she's even starred in a Witchery Tours video as the ghost of poor Mary.

Lorna joined the company in 1991 on placement from Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh where she was doing her BA in tourism. After successfully completing her course, she joined the Witchery Tours on a full-time basis.

Adam gets his Goat

Ghosts and goats are a devilish duo - except at Gorgie City Farm, where this particular pair were found on Monday.

The Witchery tour's head ghost, Adam Lyal (deceased) was presented with a Certificate of Animal Support on account of his sponsorship of "Whisper", an anglo-nubian goat, as part of the City Farm's new scheme.

Lyal's friend and partner in ghoulish goings-on, Werewolf, joined him to make Whisper's acquaintance.

Gorgie City Farm have invited individuals, families, businesses and organisations to help the farm by sponsoring an animal for a year. In return for sponsorship, supporters will receive a certificate confirming them as the supporter of a particular animal and their name on a supporters' board outside the stable.

"Telly dance puts wind up ghost guide"

Ghost tour guide Robin Mitchell got the fright of his life on prime time TV. He was tricked into appearing on Noel Edmonds' House Party. And he ended up doing an impression of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt flying.

Yesterday Robin, owner of the Witchery Tours in Edinburgh, said: "they got me hook, line and sinker. My wife and my mother were both in on the joke, which was set up by my colleagues in revenge for practical jokes I have carried out on them.

"I can't sing at all and didn't want to do it, but the TV people talked me into it and I did the steps with a choreographer before I did the dance.

"I just got on with it - but I think I'll go into hiding for six months until I stop feeling embarrassed."

The tour guide operator thought he was appearing on a holiday programme to answer questions on working in Edinburgh.

But he was caught out when one man accused him of being in league with the devil and a motorist said the tours were a distraction which made him crash. And a woman objected to him talking about the prostitutes who used to work in the city.

Just as Robin believed things could not get any worse, Noel Edmonds' voice boomed out from the loudspeakers. Noel then made Robin perform a Scottish version of Marilyn Monroe dancing over a vent.

The routine was based on a Christmas card the Witchery Tours sent out seven years after the company was set up.

Robin said: "It showed me in the famous Marilyn Monroe pose but wearing a kilt which was blown up over my waist in a take-off of the Seven Year Itch. They really did the whole thing well and I didn't have a clue I was being set up."

"Ghost tour's host takes trip into his past"

There's something spooky going on at Edinburgh Airport. Phantom Adam Lyal is setting off on a ghost tour of his own - in search of his long lost brother.

Jonnie McCrea, the actor who plays highwayman Lyal in a city-centre ghost tour, has become so attached to his character that he's decided he wants to get to know him better.

And Jonnie has decided the best way would be to track down the records of Lyal's brother John, who was transported to Australia in 1813.

Jonnie, head ghoul with Witchery Walking Tours, is now heading to New South Wales, where Lyal's brother is thought to have ended his days.

Actor Jonnie said: "It is quite a daunting prospect tracing someone whose brother you play. I'm not sure how I will feel if I meet one of 'my' descendants but at least I will have an adopted, extended family."

Adam and John Lyal arrived in Edinburgh in 1810 looking for work but then embarked on an ill-fated life of crime.

They held up a cattle trader with pistols bought from a Lawnmarket pub and then went on a spending spree.

But their sudden wealth aroused suspicion, and they were convicted of highway robbery. Adam went to the gallows, but John escaped death and ended up in Australia.

"Dracula gets his teeth into a bloody cause"

When it comes to blood, you can count on Dracula - the Transylvanian Terror seems to like it enough.

But when he turned up at the Donor Centre volunteering to donate some it was enough to make even Bram Stoker look as if he had seen a ghost.

Well, it wasn't really Dracula - but as good as. It was executed highway robber, Adam Lyal (deceased) who looks rather like the fictional Count.

Accompanied by three of his cronies from The Witchery Tours, Mr Lyal and company donated almost three pints of blood - the amount needed to carry out two caesarian sections, one hip replacement or a third of that needed for a heart by-pass operation.

The ghostly foursome hope that their bloody efforts will encourage more people to give blood and highlighted the fact that only 5% of those eligible in Scotland do so.

"No dancing to Loony tunes"

Scotland now has its own answer to Screaming Lord Sutch's Monster Raving Loony Party. Robin Mitchell is standing for the Scottish Parliament as the ghost of former highway robber Adam Lyal. Mr Mitchell is representing the Witchery Tour Party.

He denies the comparison with the Loonies, insisting the Witchery Tour Party is taking the election very seriously, one point on his manifesto being that he intends to give his MSP's salary to charity and another that he will wear white make-up for the full term.

He was slightly perturbed to receive candidates' bumph from the Scottish Office including the phrase "any candidate wishing to sand" and wondered if he had inadvertently applied for a job as an interior decorator.

However, undaunted, he pressed on, and now the party's fame has reached England. Last week a southern wizard rang up asking to join in the mistaken belief that it was a genuine political group of like-minded witches. He got short shrift.

"I suppose some political parties would take any vote they could get," said Robin.

"I don't mind kissing babies' heads but I draw the line at boiling newt's eyes and frogs' toes.

"We're not that desperate. We have at least 11 votes in the bag so we are quietly confident."

Baku Beyond - The Ghost goes East

Far-flung Azerbaijan may not know what it is in for, but an Edinburgh ghost is about to descend on the city of Baku.

Robin Mitchell, who loiters palely dressed as executed highwayman Adam Lyal on the ghost tours he runs in Auld Reekie, was roped in for the trip to the Caspian republic after he gave a business lecture at Queen Margaret's College.

It may have been the haunting quality of his delivery but Professor Ian Buick, something of a regular visitor to Baku, asked him to take part in an international business conference there next month.

As Robin intends to dress up as the ghostly caped highwayman it is to be hoped his hosts take it all in the right spirit.

"It's Ready, Steady, Spook" The Express 28/10/99

Two of Scotland's most gruesome ghouls will be haunting TV screens tomorrow night in a Ready Steady Cook Hallowe'en special.

Highwayman Adam Lyal and the Mad Monk have taken a break from prowling the streets of Edinburgh to take part in the hit BBC series.

Yesterday the pair promised viewers tuning in would see them serve up dishes with a ghostly flavour. The Monk said: "To be honest I haven't done much cooking since I was banished from the monastery, and that was more than 400 years ago."

Lyal - alias Witchery Tours' Robin Mitchell - haunts the alleyways of Edinburgh's Old Town every night. The highwayman was executed in the city's Grassmarket in 1811.

Ready Steady Cook will be screened tomorrow afternoon on BBC2 at 4pm.

STARTERS:

Fangoustines, Spawn cocktail, Devilled eggs

MAIN COURSES:

Guinea foul, Peppered stake, Hungarian ghoulash, Ghost beef and gravy

SWEETS:

Fright salad and ice scream, Shockolate mousse, Coffin and mints

"Ghoulish jailers raise 'ransom' money for charity from top city businesses"

Edinburgh business people were under attack last week, as hit squads pounced to kidnap them for ransom. But, since the cash was all going towards the Sick Children's Friends Foundation, no one was too worried.

Among 'victims' were Chris Robinson, chair of Hearts FC, Alec Spencer, the governor of Saughton prison, Billy Mawhinney of Faulds Advertising and Jackie Davidson of Lloyds UDT.

They were snatched by gory-looking jailers from the Witchery Tour company and chained up in Jury's Inn, where they began a desperate phone-round for money.

The kidnapping was on track to raise as much as £12,700 for the Sick Kids' Hospital - as we went to press we were unable to confirm suggestions that some staff had a go at bidding for the jailers to keep them in…